New Mural Honors Indigenous Culture

A new mural has been painted on the north side of the Los Cuates building (1564 Wisconsin). It honors the indigenous Wixárika people of the southwest United States and Mexico. The artist, Victor “Marka27” Quinonez, described the inspiration for the mural in an Instagram post:

Featured in this mural is an indigenous Wixárika Elder with ingredients used in many native cultures, blue maiz and guajillo peppers…The Huichol or Wixárika are an indigenous people of Mexico and the United States living in the Sierra Madre Occidental range in the states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Zacatecas, and Durango, as well as in the United States in the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

The mural was erected as part of the city’s Murals DC program, which has facilitated a boom of similarly artistic murals around DC. This wall had previously sported a more subtle painting of a ginger flower in connection with the former Red Ginger restaurant that occupied the building before Los Cuates. This new mural continues that connection between the art, culture and the cuisine.